


Amaranthine

by KinugoshiDofu



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, I love that katsudon butt, I've always wanted to write for this AU and the last episode just gave it to me, M/M, Yuuri!!! on ICE, babieeees, is gonna be a happy yuuri, sad yuuri, spoilers ep 10, the soulmate AU where you don't see colours until you touch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-07 12:52:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8801545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KinugoshiDofu/pseuds/KinugoshiDofu
Summary: Everyday has been faint hues of light and then darker and then darkest. He doesn’t understand when people talk about colour and how the blue of the sky is not the same as the blue of the sea and oh Yuuri it’s wonderful, but it’s not – it’s all just grey.He thinks how despite it not really mattering – it’s not life-threatening, this whole no-soulmate business – it’s just not really fair either. Because he can do all these things, all these really mundane every-life things like cooking rice and walking his dog, and that’s fine, alright, but other people get to do it with their other half. Better half, probably, in Yuuri’s case, because he’s actually really bad at cooking rice.He can fly, he thinks, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting someone else to fly with him.





	1. His hair is black and grey

**Author's Note:**

> So. I've been fascinated by the not-seeing-colours-until-you-touch soulmate AU since I read a really good one in the HP fandom - and what I really like more than just touching, is when one of the soulmates acts like nothing happened so drama can happen. I read an unfinished one about Tony and Cap where Cap was being kept on ice in Tony's house when he was still a baby so Tony had touched him as a baby and could since always see colours but he didn't know why. And I just loved it.
> 
> I wanted to write for this fandom because it's the first time I've watched anime in ages and I'm just adoring this one, and then after seeing the new episode I was like "YES THEY TOUCHED AND YUURI DOESN'T REMEMBER FUCK YEAH I SEE YOU SOULMATE AU"
> 
> So yes. I wrote this.
> 
> Also, I hate spelling ユーリ like Yuuri, but since that’s the way it’s written in the character tag I decided to do that. Bah.

Everyday has been faint hues of light and then darker and then darkest. He doesn’t understand when people talk about _colour_ and how the _blue of the sky_ is not the same as the _blue of the sea_ and _oh Yuuri it’s wonderful_ , but it’s not – it’s all just grey.

It’s quite violent, he thinks, nine-years-old and his best friend Yuuko and Takeshi shake hands and then the kids need to sit down for a moment because apparently, Yuuko says, it was _like an explosion in my eyes_ and it was _so bright!_

He listens to his mother tell about meeting his father and how she nearly fell over, because suddenly the world was so _beautiful_ and she had heard people talk about the wonders of sakura flowers but she had never understood, until she had seen them together with her soulmate, and they were every single colour between white and plum-pink.

He tries not to worry about it too much – not even as everybody around him is already seeing life the way it was intended – _in colour_. He tries not to get frustrated.

It probably explains why he is always hiding in the rink and why he’s always just _skating_ because he can close his eyes and he can focus on the sound of his skates cutting through the fresh layer of untrodden ice and there are no colours there – but he doesn’t need them, either. Because skating is about the _sound_ , mostly, and about the movement, and the fluidity of his body.

It’s about expression, _taut lips_ , and the feeling, almost like _soaring_ , and there is no longer this dull colourless version of himself and instead he is flying – with arms stretched wide and body ready for the leap – he starts off into a triple Salchow and misses the landing, loses his footing, but in that moment it doesn’t matter that he failed because he had been reaching for the sky. And as his body hits the ice and goes limp, for a moment he imagines that this _feeling_ is what _blue skies look like._

He thinks he doesn’t care so much about winning or losing because on the ice colours don’t matter, and isn’t that what makes the difference between a gold or silver medal anyway? The colour?

The ice does not discriminate, he thinks, it’s the same dull-white for everyone.

Except to Yuuri it’s not dull, but _magic_.

He imagines maybe he dreams in colour. Then he wakes up and realises it’s just stupid, because he doesn’t even know what colours look like. His mother tells him he will know when he sees them, but Yuuri thinks she’s just telling that to make him feel better.

He thinks sometimes he sets himself up to fail because all this dreaming he does of flying away isn’t very healthy, and the only thing that grounds him is crashing back down – and then watching his own skin grow dark in blotted shades of grey, only for his sister to describe it to him, “the bruise is green here but kind of purple there,” and nothing grounds him as much as knowing that he’s not seeing life the way he should yet.

He thinks maybe he can make it big someday, but his heart is not really in it and he knows this. Because other people are skating in this magical world bursting with colour, moving, for their soul-mate’s eyes and he—

He—

He is just trying to break free – from the only magic he’s ever known, _grey_.

He tells himself he doesn’t need anyone. He tells himself it’s okay.

But every time he meets someone new he anticipates it – that violent burst of _too bright_ , as Yuuko had described it, and he thinks _maybe I will see cherry-blossoms right this time_.

And he shakes hands and—no not this time, but there’s always next time and maybe…

No. Not yet.

No.

No.

He stops anticipating and shaking hands because human contact only reminds him of this one thing he can’t have. He knows Phichit’s skin is supposed to be something akin to caramel, but caramel is just blotchy light-grey to him, and no matter how hard Phichit tries, pressing fingers into his wrists and arms around his shoulders and _lips_ – like sakura-pink his mother had said – into his hair – black and blue, Yuuko had chirped – _nothing_ makes the grey go away.

He knows Phichit hasn’t found his soulmate yet either, and he wishes he could just _make the boy see colours_ because Phichit is always happy and supportive and always working _hard, harder, hardest_ , and Yuuri thinks that if any one person deserves to see colours, it’s Phichit.

Then he thinks he doesn’t want to be the only one stuck seeing greys.

He thinks how despite it not really mattering – it’s not life-threatening, this whole no-soulmate business – it’s just not really fair either. Because he can do all these things, all these really mundane every-life things like cooking rice and walking his dog, and that’s fine, alright, but other people get to do it _with_ their other half. Better half, probably, in Yuuri’s case, because he’s actually really bad at cooking rice.

It’s not that he needs this other person every single day. It’s just that he _wants_ it. Really badly too, and he’s finding it increasingly hard to hide it. Because he wants to believe that him skating is just for himself, his private thing, the one thing that makes _all other things_ irrelevant – he wants to tell himself that when he’s on the ice nothing matters and no one’s watching and all he wants to do is _fly_ , but if he’s being honest he just really hopes that if he ever meets his soulmate he can show them his _heart_ , out there on the ice, and that they will understand.

He can fly, he thinks, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting someone else to fly with him.

When Vicchan passes away he cries, and cries, and cries. They had been together since he was small and still stumbling on ice, and he had hoped to one day see the colour of his fur and the colour of his paws and the colour of his tongue – _brown pink pink_ , but it are just _words_ to him, there is no meaning.

He doesn’t care so much about losing. He drinks a lot of alcohol, and stays away from the other ice-skaters. He knows most of them probably see colour. He’s seen Victor Nikiforov on television, explaining the colour-scheme of his outfits, and every time he stares until his eyes water because he wants to see them _so bad_.

Because Victor talks about the red of _fire_ burning deep inside his soul, highlighting his _passion_ , and then blue like early morning on crisp Russian winter days to showcase his serenity and then _brown_ like his Maccachin’s fur, because he needs a reminder that his best friend is always there to support him – and Yuuri wants to _see_ , he wants to _understand_ , these colours that make his idol _feel_. He wants to reach out and touch inside this man’s soul – he wants to experience colours the way Victor does, because only then, can he _fly_ , the way Victor does too.

Victor is at the banquet too, he thinks, but he doesn’t really care, he pretends, because Victor can already see colours anyway. He is the only one living in shades of grey.

He drinks more champagne then he probably should, because if he squints he can pretend that the shade of light-grey in his drink is actually the illusive bubbly white-yellow Minako had been talking about.

When he wakes up his head hurts.

He just kind of lies in his bed for the longest time, head buried in his pillow, every single muscle in his body _aching_. He moves his toes first. No matter how hard he squeezes his eyes shut, the white light from the sun is seeping in through the cracks in his curtains and can’t seem to get back to sleep.

He rubs at his eyes and then blinks drowsily. The pillow is crisp and white, as it’s always been.

He tries not to move too abruptly or cause himself pain – his brain is successfully thundering against the back of his skull now – and he runs a hand drowsily through his hair, making the locks fall into his eyes.

It’s black, like it’s always been, with a bit of a grey hue when he’s—

It’s not grey.

For a moment he thinks something is terribly wrong because there’s hair in his face and it’s not black-grey, but black—

_Something_.

He thinks maybe someone put something in his drink and now his vision is just temporarily blurry except then he brings his hands to scrub at his face, rub the fatigue off, and they’re _weird_. They’re not grey at all, except they’re this weird shade of something he’s never seen, and then his gaze wanders down and his pyjama is not a shade of grey close to black but instead it’s this really obnoxious _something_.

His plan is to _run_ to the bathroom to watch his old grey mirror-image except that as soon as he gets up he realises that _nothing_ in this room is _anything_ like it was before, except for the white walls and the white sheets and the black door-frames.

These are colours, he realises with a start, as he takes in the sight of the half-eaten apple from the other day, now all kinds of none-grey. The carpet is soft under his feet, not so much white-light-grey as it had been before, now similar to the colour of his own feet, except a bit more like black.

He is seeing colour.

It’s great, he thinks at first, as violent as he had always imagined it to be, and he just can’t _wait_ to find out about the _blue_ ocean that is different from the _blue_ sky and he wants to talk to his mother and ask her, _what colour is my pyjama actually_ , and he thinks about watching a picture of his dog and finally seeing his best friend as he was supposed to be seen and—

Then he realises that he is all alone. He has made someone else see colours, too, but they had apparently been unaffected. The colours that Yuuri so vividly sees – they had been found lacking.


	2. The Russian sky is grey anyway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor doesn’t see colours, but, as Yakov used to say, Russia is all shades of grey anyway. It’s almost always winter, which is very blindingly white, and Viktor thinks these different greys quite match the world he lives in anyway.
> 
> He’s not sad about it – every year that he doesn’t meet his soulmate is another year he gets to perfect himself, so that when they meet, if they meet, he will be the best version of himself he can be, move this way, nail that pose.
> 
> People here don’t really talk about it often, but he sees it in the way they’re all trying hard. Where he lives, people act cold but they have the warmest hearts and nobody wants to disappoint their intended. So he reads a lot about many different things like how to sew torn clothes and what conversation-starters to use in what part of the world and he keeps his body in shape and he smiles in the most handsome way he can – he is going to be perfect, if it’s the last thing he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention that people who haven't touched their soulmates are not colourblind. I know colourblind is not seeing greys, but more seeing duller colours and less shades of a colour. So in this AU, probably made obvious by the first chapter but I want to verify it, they live in a black and white world!
> 
> Also, don't wanna pat myself on the back, but the way Viktor and Yuuri are the same but not really becomes clear here, I think! Also I spelled Viktor as Viktor in this chapter because it seemed more natural.

**The Russian sky is grey anyway**

 

Viktor doesn’t see colours, but, as Yakov used to say, Russia is all shades of grey anyway. It’s almost always winter, which is very blindingly white, and Viktor thinks these different greys quite match the world he lives in anyway.

He’s not sad about it – every year that he doesn’t meet his soulmate is another year he gets to perfect himself, so that when they meet, if they meet, he will be the best version of himself he can be, _move this way, nail that pose_.

People here don’t really talk about it often, but he sees it in the way they’re all trying hard. Where he lives, people act cold but they have the warmest hearts and nobody wants to disappoint their intended. So he reads a lot about many different things like how to sew torn clothes and what conversation-starters to use in what part of the world and he keeps his body in shape and he smiles in the most handsome way he can – he is going to be _perfect_ , if it’s the last thing he does.

He skates his heart out, every day, because he wants his soulmate to watch him – they haven’t touched, and the world is grey, but he hopes that somewhere, someday, his soon-to-be lover is watching him and that he _feels_ almost as vividly as the colours they do not yet see.

And _he_ feels it too, every time he gets on the ice. Skating used to be something he did to pass the time, but it’s more now, because when he skates he feels as if everything is coloured already, and he imagines his soulmate skating right next to him and understanding every single _layer_ of him. He watches the long line of his body throw shadows on the ice and if he closes his eyes it feels like they’re already _there_. No greys, but hands brushing his cheek and telling him _you’re good enough_.

He never stops skating because he’s afraid that if he stops he will wake up in a world where everything is already coloured but he is still alone. He thinks he would rather live life in shades of grey with the prospect of a partner than live life in colour with no one there with him.

So every time he goes up there he just holds on to that one little thing – this ridiculous idea that if he just performs _well enough_ if he just _lets go hair flying smiles just like so_ his soulmate will know. They don’t need colours – all they need is this space and time where they see each other and it will be like the way his cheeks heat up in winter after he’s had Sbiten.

He is hopeful – because he doesn’t know how not to be.

His friends call him cocky – but he has worked hard to be where he is, and he thinks it’s a little bit stupid how people talk about colours like they’re such a big deal, whilst the biggest part of the equation for Viktor is finding his other half. The colours are just an added bonus.

He thinks of how nice it would be to come home to mulled Sbiten on a cold winter evening and smiles fondly, a fantasy that feels more like a memory and he _just can’t wait_ , so he steps up his game and he perfects his moves and he aces his jumps. He’s always been rubbish at preparing his own drinks.

He dyes his hair grey because he gets annoyed when people comment on how lovely _blonde_ his hair is, like a _yellow halo_ framing his face. They’re words and they mean nothing and it frustrates him. He likes knowing that when he looks in the mirror his hair is the exact colour he wants it to be – and he can see that, and he can see his pyjamas, white as crisp, and his slippers – white – against the carpet – white – and he relaxes.

One day, he tells himself, one day he will meet his soulmate and he will understand.

Yakov tells him to lie. He says there is absolutely no possible advantage that could come from admitting that he is sixteen and not seeing colours – girls would swoon and flock around him and it would just be distracting.

So he lies. He chooses his costumes based on the patterns the different hues of grey make and the way they entwine and the softness of the fabric and the gentleness it reminds him of and then listens carefully as Yakov explains each colour and concept and tells him how they represent him perfectly and then he goes on to prattle about how red is the colour of the fire burning in his soul. He thinks it’s a little weird, how sure Yakov is that all these _reds_ and _blues_ and _greens_ mean something to him, because they’re just words and his life is without colour so how are they supposed to show him to the world? To be honest, he thinks his passion is that shade of grey really close to white, almost blinding. _Red_ doesn’t do anything for him, and he hopes that when he meets his soulmate they too, will know, that this soul-crushing almost-white is the most beautiful thing in the world.

He knows it’s a dangerous game. Because he’s working hard, making it big, and this is supposed to give him the opportunity to meet this whole array of new people – all possible soulmates. But telling people he _sees colours_ , isn’t that just playing with dark-dappled fire?

So he becomes a bit too touchy, maybe a little creepy, but he smiles, so bright, and knows he’s forgiven.

He watches as Yuri’s lie gets caught and how suddenly he is being hassled almost every day, girls telling him _I touched you and everything became multi-coloured_ , and he thinks _how annoying_ and keeps his mouth shut.

Yuri knows, and Yuri wants to see colours. He’s kind of small, Viktor thinks, but he can tell in the way that Yuri clings on to him, just a little too tight, that he is impatient. Viktor makes very sour-tasting borscht that Yuri eats anyway, and they joke about it, as if it’s no big deal that Yuri has been waiting to touch Viktor just because the idea of seeing colours scared him, but then when they had, he hadn’t seen anything special, _nothing at all_ , and Yuri needs to deal with that.

Viktor isn’t surprised. He’s heard people talk about Yuri’s blonde hair, and for some reason, that says all he needs to know. Is that mean?

He wonders, because Yuri _really_ wants to see colours and Viktor doesn’t really care about them all that much anyway, so he guesses that _yes_ , if he could use one touch to make Yuri see colours, he would.

But it’s not up to him to decide, and then he figures that probably his soulmate wants it just as bad as Yuri does – and he is sure, that wherever they are, whatever they’re doing, they are the most deserving of a world filled with dozens of bright hues of colours.

Just like that he puts his life on hold for a while, and then a little bit longer and a little bit longer.

And a little bit longer

And he watches – he watches as colours change people. And he gets annoyed, because all he hears is Christophe crooning about how he had never known how beautiful the colour red _really_ was – but so _what_? Why do people keep talking about this _red_ as if it _matters_? Because when you’ve just met your betrothed, how does something as trivial as _colours_ even compare?

Except then he finds out, in the most ungraceful way.

Because there’s a banquet and drinks and a drunk boy dancing quite scandalously. He’s met most of the people there, and makes it a point to introduce himself to the ones that he hasn’t yet – he shakes hands and meets eyes and every time he tries to mentally prepare himself, _you may be it_.

But they’re not it.

And then—no, they’re not it either.

He’s shaken too many hands and he’s about to call it quits when the drunk boy makes quite a show and starts a dance-off. He’s amused, nothing more, because he’s seen the boy move on ice and though he was quite a marvellous sight to see, he knew nothing more about him than just his name.

Katsuki Yuuri is doing a very good job at embarrassing himself and all people around him are looking mortified – but then the boy is suddenly _clinging_ to Victor and it’s like _someone has turned the music up real loud_ and there’s _sparks_ where Yuuri is grabbing on to him

It’s all very fast and Viktor has always been prepared for this – he has rehearsed in front of the mirror on what to say when he first met his soulmate, and very diligently too, as he does all things – but suddenly it’s like he’s lost his footing. Because Yuuri is already drunkenly waddling on and just like that the moment is over and even though the world had _stopped_ for Viktor, it’s moving on for everyone else.

In the whirlwind of all these new shades of what he supposes are _colours_ he loses Yuuri and he doesn’t see him again that night. It’s mistakenly the most scary experience of his life because there is nothing in this world that looks like it’s supposed to – and there is no one next to him to get him true, either.

So he is left to explore this new world on his own, and he isn’t one to complain, instead preferring perseverance, but he would be lying if he said he isn’t slightly annoyed.

Everything looks different, and when he undresses in front of the mirror that night he finds it terrible disheartening that the suit he had so purposely chosen for its white colour was actually a little bit more _not-white_ than he had anticipated. He thinks this is what nightmares feel like, as he stares at his slippers and pyjama which were once white and now appear to look more like sunlight.

It’s a little bit heart-breaking but mostly disappointing, because nothing looks the way it used to and there is absolutely no one there for him to make it more bearable. His worst fear has become reality.

The next day he tries to approach Yuuri but the boy is resolutely looking the other way and just as he leaves Viktor realises that in this whole entire new _weird_ world the only thing that looks familiar is the shade of Yuuri’s hair, black with a little sheen of not-black.

And that will do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to make this a threeshot! ...is a threeshot a thing?

**Author's Note:**

> This will be put up in two parts! I've only written this part and I was thinking about ending it here... but I could also definitely write a second part... I've already kind of worked it out for the most part... what do you guys think?


End file.
